


Sheathing the Sword

by aptasi



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Angst, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:15:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26067847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aptasi/pseuds/aptasi
Summary: Debriefing after Falme
Relationships: moiraine damodred & al'lan mandragoran
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Sheathing the Sword

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for the title concept

You taught Rand "Sheathing the Sword?"

"I did." Lan frowned at his bondholder. "He must know it. You cannot deny."

"Not until Tarmon Gai'don" Moiraine interrupted. "Now, he thinks to use it for everything. He hates himself, his grip on identity is capricious, and you offer..."

"He would get it somewhere." 

The bond spiked intensely bitter. "You never taught me. I studied that lesson behind your back. You gave me the blade forms, every other discipline you inheirited, but not that. Why? Because I am a woman?"

"You're much like Rand."

Moiraine glowered. 

"You learned it. What difference now?"

The bond felt rigid. "I would have it legitimately. I would have it from someone who cares about me. If you are such, Lan."

He regarded her. "Would still, though you know it already?"

"Would still. If you think I have earned it, after all these years."

So, Lan got on one knee and said the teaching. "Moiraine, Aes Sedai, my bondholder."

"Lan Gaidin, Lord of the Seven Towers."

"There will come a time" he said "When you must achieve a goal at all costs. It may come in attack or in defense."

"Or both." She said softly. 

"Or both. And the only way..." Lan stopped, swallowed, began again. "And the only way will be to allow the sword to be sheathed in your own body. He reached for her hand suddenly, crushed it in both of his. 

"And how will I know," Moiraine prompted gently, "When it is right to allow such a thing as that?"

"Only you can know" Lan said "when the price is worth the gain, and there is no other choice left to you." 

"You cannot decide for me?" She asked pointedly. 

He grimaced, looking like grotesque carving of stone. "Not I, nor any other. You will know. As you knew when you stepped in front of Aginor. As you have known in the past, so you will in the future."

The Aes Sedai nodded, and Lan held her hand all the tighter. 

"That is called Sheathing the Sword, Moiraine Aes Sedai. Remember it."

"I will."

Lan stood and placed his hands on Moiraine's small shoulders. "There, now you have it. As my teachers taught me. As their teachers taught them."

She nodded. 

"But remember Aes Sedai, I will be there, to take that sword instead of you."

Minutely, she shook her head. 

"It does you credit that you don't wish to dispose of me lightly, but I knew what I was giving you when I took your bond. And in return it is my honor to protect you. You are part of a long tradition of warriors and selfless soldiers of the light."

"I am part of a long tradition of social climbers, cheats, narcissists, and fratricides." 

"In the borderlands if a man hews to some warrior tradition, honors it, then that tradition is his and no one can say different. You don't have to be Malkieri for that."

"I am rather like Rand, am I not?" Moiraine said derisively. 

"What the pattern needs?"

"Perhaps." She turned for the door. 

"Moiraine."

"Yes?"

"I only left it out to protect you."

"In that objective, Last of the Seven Towers, you failed."


End file.
